Sweeping arrests in Syria after military rolls in (AP)

Sunday, May 8, 2011 4:01 AM By dwi

CAIRO – Asiatic section forces arrested more than 200 people early Sun — including a 10-year-old boy — as President Bashar Assad expands a crusade to modify the country's seven-week, broad uprising, activists said.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, the administrator of the Asiatic Observatory for Human Rights, said more than 200 people were picked up long in Banias, a key oil-industry municipality on the Mediterranean coast where whatever of the maximal protests hit been held. On Saturday, troops in tanks and bulletproof vehicles pronounceable in and stamped off the city.

A 10-year-old was among those condemned into custody, Abdul-Rahman said.

"It appears to be designed to penalise his parents," he told The Associated Press, adding that water, energy and nearly all forms of act to the municipality hit been cut.

Another activist getting witness reports said threesome more people hit been reportable departed there since Saturday, bringing the two-day death sound in Banias to six. The activist declined to be named for safety reasons.

The uprising in Syria was sparked in mid-March by the arrest of teenagers who scrawled anti-regime graffiti on a surround in the southern municipality of Daraa. Protests inspired by uprisings comprehensive the Semite concern spread apace crossways the commonwealth of whatever 23 million people.

More than 580 civilians and 100 soldiers hit been killed since the sicken began, rights groups say.

The events in Banias, after section forces killed 30 people in broad protests on Friday, came on the heels of a large-scale expeditionary activeness in Daraa. The 11-day siege, in which most 50 residents were killed, triggered international outrage and condemnation.

Banias, which is bag to digit of the country's digit lubricator refineries and is the important saucer of export for Asiatic oil, has a potentially explosive mix of churchlike groups and sects. It is predominantly coterie Islamic but is also bag to some Alawites — the coterie of the ruling Assad kinsfolk and some grownup officials. It also has a super noesis station.

Syrian officials and state-run media hit proven to portray Banias as a hotbed of Islamic extremists to justify the regime's crackdown. The state news authority SANA said the grey and section forces were pursuing fugitives in Banias and were able to arrest a super number of them and lost their weapons.

On Sunday, SANA said Asiatic polity hit seized sophisticated weapons and that the grey is still labour downbound "armed terrorist groups" crossways the country, including in Banias.

The U.S. has already imposed sanctions on threesome top Asiatic officials as well as Syria's info authority and Iran's Revolutionary Guard over the crackdown. The European Union is due to locate sanctions on Asiatic officials next week, and the U.N. said Sat it is sending a aggroup into Syria to analyse the situation.

An activeness in Banias similar to the digit in Daraa, where the uprising began, risks further isolating Assad's regime, which has utilised fell expeditionary force to modify the unexampled sicken against his family's 40-year dynasty.

Details of the crowd deployment in Banias, for weeks the environs of demonstrations demanding program change, were tight as sound lines and another act with the area were mostly revilement off.


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